Page 32 of Love JD

Isla peered at my cottage house like I had a giraffe in my front yard. “This is yours?”

Truth be told, I couldn’t quite believe it myself most days. “It’s kind of a long story.” As I pulled into the garage, the lights flicked on and cast an orange glow over Isla’s skin. She cocked her head, silently waiting for me to continue. I turned the car off and sat back in the sudden hush. “I was apartment hunting because I was tired of renting, and as far as investments go, buying seemed like the wiser choice.”

She nodded, ending it with a little eye squint. “I mean, I don’t know, but yeah, so they say.”

Fuck, she was cute. And way too innocent for me. “Right,” I smiled mildly. “So, I had scheduled a bunch of house tours over a weekend, and nothing felt quite right. They all had the things I’d asked for, but they didn’t feel like home. On our way out of an apartment building, my realtor dropped a whole stack of listings she’d been carrying for her clients, and they scattered everywhere.” I stared out of the windshield at my bare, tidy garage, remembering the blustery November day in high-definition clarity.

“An older woman waiting for her bus stooped over to pick up one of the papers, and I ran over to her and thanked her for it. But when I tried to grab it,” I mimed tugging on the paper, smiling faintly, “she wouldn’t let go. I thought maybe she liked the house or something, but she looked at me, and I swear to God, I felt like I’d seen my own soul in her eyes or something.”

Isla watched me with rapt attention, her mouth parted slightly.

I gestured to the garage. “It was this house. She said, ‘Welcome home.’ It was hard to ignore that, and despite it being literally everything I thought I didn’t need, I knew it was mine when I stepped through the front door.”

“Your soulmate is a house,” Isla said in awe.

I laughed, turning an eyebrow raise her way. “You think so? Happily ever after, just me and the house?”

“Well, no,” she amended with some humor. “I’m sure you’ll find some kickass chick who will appreciate the house with you. But wow. That’s really cool.”

I wasn’t sure about the kickass woman, but I appreciated her optimism. I grabbed her bags and led her into the house through the side door, which opened to a narrow hallway before funneling out to a dayroom that looked out over the backyard. None of it was huge, but the well-manicured lawn sloped up a hill to a stone wall and had been dotted with mature trees. I also had a chicken coop. Randomly. I’d cleaned it out really well after moving in, but beyond that, I had no idea what to do with the thing.

The floodlights out back illuminated the wooden swing hanging from the maple tree, and Isla gave me a mildly amused look over her shoulder when she saw it. I shrugged. “Azura liked it.”

“You swing when you’re moody. I’m calling it,” she grinned.

I did, dammit.

I showed her to her room, which Azura had borrowed for a bit after we’d “rescued” her from Tristan. Not that I could judge them too harshly. I had just kidnapped Tristan’s sister so… payback. The only difference is that I’d struck a deal with Isla to convince her to be here. A completely fair, not-at-all-leaning-heavily-in-my-favor deal.

If I taught her to kiss, she would stay in my house. Totally reasonable.

Isla trailed her hand along the sheer curtains in the bedroom, peering out of the window which also looked out at the tree swing, and she leaned against the wood trim with her arms folded. “This is cute. You’ve got the whole kidnapping thing down. You should make a career out of it.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough to put up with more than one fainting goat,” I replied seriously. “Towels and everything are in the bathroom down the hall. Do you need anything else?”

Isla’s gaze wavered uncertainly, like she had just then realized she was staying in some guy’s house. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

“At nine o’ clock at night?” I queried, cocking my head.

She grimaced in resignation. “I guess I’m good, then.” She watched me closely, her expression guarded.

I bit the inside of my lip to keep from smiling. She absolutely expected me to charge across the refinished wood floors, snatch her up, and give her a kissing lesson now that I had her in my evil lair. I schooled my features into a placid mask. “I’ll be in the garage if you need me.”

She perked up with interest. “The garage?”

“I’m just working on a project,” I replied, leaning out of the room.

“Oh, okay,” Isla said, playing it cool.

She was nervous as fuck, and I found it nearly irresistible. Which was why I forced myself to leave her alone. She didn’t need an overbearing yeti hovering over her while she worked through her thoughts.

I changed into a stained T-shirt that I’d worn when I’d repainted nearly every room in the house, and then pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants. With my headphones over my ears, I ambled into the garage to work on the unstained boards I had lying on the cement floor. I’d bought the stain and boards two weekends ago, but work—and a certain, lichen-obsessed college student—had distracted me from actually building a garden bed. Never mind that it was two months too late to start a garden. But I was determined, dammit.

I set up two sawhorses, set a board between them, and got to work staining. If any of my friends saw me doing this, they would piss their pants laughing. As far as they knew, my hobbies included knocking back shots, watching women dance in clubs, and working too much. Zev Brady did not pre-treat lumber for garden beds. Starla had already texted me earlier and asked if I wanted to meet for drinks at her rooftop party, but I wasn’t about to leave Isla alone in my house just to get wasted with Denver’s finest assholes.

Besides, if I really did want this garden thing to be useful, I was fairly certain that I needed to get it finished this week. My mother always had plants in the soil by April, so I was pretty far behind schedule.

A sharp pain pierced through the middle of my chest, and I rubbed it, smearing some stain on my already ruined shirt. Thinking of my mom was like lying on my acupressure mat. It hurt, but the more I did it, the more I acclimated to the pain. I’d spent the entirety of my twenties avoiding the exercise entirely, but the more I did that, the more I’d found that I drowned my feelings in whiskey and beer. I’d known then it wasn’t sustainable, but it had taken me longer than I cared to admit to let go of the crutches I’d leaned on when the pain had been the most acute.

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